Red Cap Tales, Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North

"Not very clearly!" he answered.

"Ay," she said, "here was the very spot where Frank Kennedy was pulled from his horse. I was hiding behind the bour-tree bush at the moment. Sair, sair he strove and sair he cried for mercy. But he was in the hands of them that never kenned the word."

Continuing her way, she led them downward to the sea by a secret and rugged path, cut in the face of the cliff, and hidden among brushwood. There on the shore lay the stone under which the body of Frank Kennedy had been found crushed. A little farther on was the cave itself in which the murderers had concealed themselves. The gipsy pointed mysteriously.

"He is there," she said, in a low voice, "the man who alone can establish your right—Jansen Hatteraick, the tyrant of your youth, and the murderer of Frank Kennedy. Follow me—I have put the fire between you. He will not see you as you enter, but when I utter the words, 'The Hour and the Man'—then do you rush in and seize him. But be prepared. It will be a hard battle, for Hatteraick is a very devil!"

"Dandie, you must stand by me now!" said Bertram to his comrade.

"That ye need never doubt," returned the Borderer; "but a' the same it's an awesome thing to leave the blessed sun and free air, and gang and be killed like a fox in his hole. But I'll never baulk ye—it'll be a hard-bitten terrier that will worry Dandie!"

So forward they went, creeping cautiously on all fours after the gipsy woman. When they were about halfway in, a hand was laid on Dandie Dinmont's heel, and it was all the stout farmer could do to keep from crying out—which, in the defenceless position in which they were placed, might well have cost them all their lives.

However, Dandie freed his ankle with a kick, and instantly a voice behind him whispered, "It is a friend—Charles Hazlewood!"

As soon as they had gained the higher part of the cave, Meg Merrilies began rustling about among the dried branches, murmuring and singing, to cover the noise made by the entrance of the three men who followed her. From the deep dark where they stood, they could see Dirk Hatteraick at the farther end of the cave, behind a fire which he was continually building up by throwing into it bits of dried sticks. Hatteraick was of powerful build, and his features were beyond description savage and rugged. A cutlass hung by his side, and into his belt he had thrust, ready to his hand at a moment's notice, two pairs of pistols. Truly the capture of Dirk Hatteraick was no light adventure, and Bertram, having been warned by Dandie in a cautious whisper of Hazlewood's arrival, thought within himself that they would be none the worse of the third who had come so opportunely to their assistance.

"Here, beldam—deyvil's kind," cried Hatteraick in his harshest voice, "have you brought me the brandy and news of my people?"

"Here is the flask for you," answered Meg, passing it to him; "but as for your crew, they are all cut down and scattered by the redcoats!"

"Storm and wetter, ye hag," he cried, "ye bring ill news. This coast is fatal to me! And what of Glossin?"

"Ye missed your stroke there," she said; "ye have nothing to expect from him!"

"Hagel," cried the ruffian, "if only I had him by the throat! He has led me to perdition—men lost, boat lost, credit lost. I dare never show my face in Flushing again!"

"You will never need!" croaked the gipsy.

Meg's sombre prophecy startled Hatteraick. He looked up suddenly.

"What is that you say, witch? And what are you doing there?" he cried. Meg dropped a firebrand steeped in spirit upon some loose flax. Instantly a tall column of brilliant wavering light filled the cave.

"Ye will never need to go to Flushing," she said, "because 'The Hour's come and the Man!'"

At the signal, Bertram and Dandie Dinmont, springing over the brushwood, rushed upon Hatteraick. Hazlewood, not knowing the plan of assault, was a moment later. The ruffian instantly understood that he had been betrayed, and the first brunt of his anger fell upon Meg Merrilies, at whose breast he fired a pistol point-blank. She fell with a shriek which was partly the sudden pain of the wound, and partly a shout of triumphant laughter.

"I kenned it would end that way—and it is e'en this way that it should end!"

Bertram had caught his foot on some slippery weed as he advanced, and the chance stumble saved his life. For otherwise Hatteraick's second bullet, aimed coolly and steadily, would certainly have crashed through his skull. Before he could draw a third, Dandie Dinmont was upon him. Yet such was the giant smuggler's strength and desperation, that he actually dragged Dandie through the burning flax, before Bertram and Hazlewood could come to the farmer's assistance. Then in a moment more Hatteraick was disarmed and bound, though to master him took all the strength of three strong well-grown men.

After he had been once bound securely, Hatteraick made no further attempt to escape. He lay perfectly still while Bertram, leaving Dandie to guard his prisoner, went to look to Meg Merrilies. The soldier, familiar with gunshot wounds, knew at once that her case was hopeless.

But he did what he could to bind up the old gipsy's wound, while Dandie, his hand laid heavily on Hatteraick's breast, watched pistol in hand the entrance of the cave. Hazlewood, whose horse had been tied outside, mounted to ride for assistance, and in a few moments silence fell on the scene of so fierce a combat, broken only by the low moans of the wounded gipsy.

It was no more than three-quarters of an hour that Bertram and Dandie Dinmont had to keep their watch. But to them it seemed as if ages had passed before Hazlewood returned and they were clear of the fatal cavern. Hatteraick allowed himself to be removed without either assisting or hindering those who had charge of him. But when his captors would have had him rest against the huge boulder which had been thrown down along with the murdered exciseman, Hatteraick shrank back with a shout:

"Hagel—not there," he cried, "you would not have me sit there!"

On the arrival of a doctor, he could only confirm Bertram's opinion that Meg Merrilies was indeed wounded to the death. But she had enough strength left to call the assembled people to witness that Bertram was indeed young Harry Bertram the lost heir of Ellangowan.

"All who have ever seen his father or grandfather, bear witness if he is not their living image!" she cried.

Then with her failing breath she told the tale of the murder, and how she had pleaded for the child's life. She dared Dirk Hatteraick to deny the truth of what she was saying. But the villain only kept his grim silence. Then suddenly the enthusiasm broke forth at the chance testimony of the driver of a return coach to Kippletringan, who exclaimed at sight of Bertram, "As sure as there's breath in man, there's auld Ellangowan risen from the dead!" The shouts of the people, many of whom had lived all their lives on his father's land, came gratefully to the ear of the dying woman.

"Dinna ye hear?" she cried, "dinna ye hear? He's owned—he's owned! I am a sinfu' woman! It was my curse that brought the ill, but it has been my blessing that has ta'en it off! Stand oot o' the light that I may see him yince mair. But no—it may not be! The darkness is in my ain e'en. It's a' ended now:

"Pass breath,Come death!"

And sinking back on her bed of straw, Meg Merrilies died without a groan.

Mr. Pleydell having, as Sheriff of the county, formerly conducted the inquiry into Frank Kennedy's death, was asked by the other magistrates to preside at this. The meeting was held in the court-house of Kippletringan, and many of the chief people in the neighbourhood hastened to the little town to be present at the examination of Hatteraick. Pleydell, among the evidence formerly collected, had by him the sizes and markings of the footmarks found round the place of Frank Kennedy's death-struggle. These had, of course, been safely preserved, ever since the failure of justice on that occasion. One set evidently belonged to a long and heavy foot, and fitted the boots of Brown, the mate of Hatteraick's vessel, the same who had been killed at the attack on Woodbourne. The stouter and thicker moulds fitted those of the prisoner himself.

At this Hatteraick cried out suddenly, "Der deyvil, how could there be footmarks at all on the ground when it was as hard as the heart of a Memel log?"

Instantly Pleydell noted the smuggler's slip.

"In the evening," he said, "I grant you the ground was hard—not, however, in the morning. But, Captain Hatteraick, will you kindly tell me where you were on the day which you remember so exactly?"

Hatteraick, seeing his mistake, again relapsed into silence, and at that moment Glossin bustled in to take his place on the bench with his brother magistrates. He was, however, very coldly received indeed, though he did his best to curry favour with each in succession. Even Hatteraick only scowled at him, when he suggested that "the poor man, being only up for examination, need not be so heavily ironed."

"The poor man has escaped once before," said Mr. Mac-Morlan, drily. But something worse was in store for Glossin than the cold shoulder from his fellow-justices. In his search through the documents found upon Hatteraick, Pleydell had come upon three slips of paper, being bills which had been drawn and signed by Hatteraick on the very day of the Kennedy murder, ordering large sums of money to be paid to Glossin. The bills had been duly honoured. Mr. Pleydell turned at once upon Glossin.

"That confirms the story which has been told by a second eye-witness of the murder, one Gabriel, or Gibbs Faa, a nephew of Meg Merrilies, that you were an accessory after the fact, in so far as, though you did not take part in the slaughter of Kennedy, you concealed the guilty persons on account of their giving you this sum of money."

In a few minutes Glossin found himself deserted by all, and he was even ordered to be confined in the prison of Kippletringan, in a room immediately underneath the cell occupied by Hatteraick. The smuggler, being under the accusation of murder and having once already escaped, was put for safety in the dungeon, called the "condemned cell," and there chained to a great bar of iron, upon which a thick ring ran from one side of the room to the other.

Left to his unpleasant reflections, Glossin began to count up the chances in his favour. Meg Merrilies was dead. Gabriel Faa, besides being a gipsy, was a vagrant and a deserter. The other witnesses—he did not greatly fear them! If only Dirk Hatteraick could be induced to be steady, and to put another meaning upon the sums of money which had been paid to him on the day of Kennedy's murder!

He must see Hatteraick—that very night he must see him! He slipped two guineas into Mac-Guffog's hand (who since the burning of Portanferry prison had been made under-turnkey at Kippletringan), and by the thief-taker's connivance he was to be admitted that very night at locking-up time into the cell of Dirk Hatteraick.

"But you will have to remain there all night," said the man. "I have to take the keys of all the cells directly to the captain of the prison!"

So on his stocking-soles Glossin stole up after his guide, and was presently locked in with the savage and desperate smuggler. At first Hatteraick would neither speak to Glossin nor listen to a word concerning his plans.

"Plans," he cried at last, in a burst of fury, "you and your plans! You have planned me out of ship, cargo, and life. I dreamed this moment that Meg Merrilies dragged you here by the hair, and put her long clasp-knife into my hand. Ah, you don't know what she said! Sturm-wetter, it will be your wisdom not to tempt me!"

"Why, Hatteraick," said Glossin, "have you turned driveller? Rise and speak with me!"

"Hagel, nein—let me alone!"

"Get up, at least! Up with you for an obstinate Dutch brute!" said Glossin, all at once losing his temper and kicking him with his heavy boot.

"Donner and blitzen," cried Hatteraick, leaping up and grappling with him, "you shall have it then!"

Glossin resisted as best he could, but his utmost strength was as nothing in the mighty grasp of the angry savage. He fell under Hatteraick, the back of his neck coming with a fearful crash upon the iron bar.

In the morning, true to his promise, Mac-Guffog called Glossin to come out of Hatteraick's cell.

"Call louder!" answered a voice from within, grimly.

"Mr. Glossin, come away," repeated Mac-Guffog; "for Heaven's sake come away!"

"He'll hardly do that without help!" said Hatteraick.

"What are you standing chattering there for, Mac-Guffog?" cried the captain of the prison, coming up with a lantern. They found Glossin's body doubled across the iron bar. He was stone dead. Hatteraick's grip had choked the life out of him as he lay.

The murderer, having thus done justice on his accomplice, asked neither favour nor mercy for himself, save only that he might have paper whereon to write to his firm in Holland.

"I was always faithful to owners," he said, when they reproached him with his crimes. "I always accounted for cargo to the last stiver! As for that carrion," he added (pointing to Glossin), "I have only sent him to the devil a little ahead of me!"

They gave him what he asked for—pens, ink, and paper. And on their return, in a couple of hours, they found his body dangling from the wall. The smuggler had hanged himself by a cord taken from his own truckle-bed.

And though Mac-Guffog lost his place, on the suspicion of having introduced Glossin into Hatteraick's cell, there were many who believed that it was the Evil One himself who had brought the rogue and the ruffian together in order that they might save the hangman the trouble of doing his office upon them.

The end can be told in a word. Harry Bertram was duly and legally returned as heir of Ellangowan. His father's debts were soon paid, and the Colonel, in giving him his daughter, gave him also the means of rebuilding the ancient castle of the Ellangowan race. Sir Robert Hazlewood had no objections to Lucy Bertram as a daughter-in-law, so soon as he knew that she brought with her as a dowry the whole estate of Singleside, which her brother insisted on her taking in accordance with her aunt's first intention. And lastly, in the new castle, there was one chamber bigger than all the others, called the Library, and just off it a little one, in which dwelt the happiest of men upon the earth. This chamber was called on the plans "Mr. Sampson's Apartment."

THE END OF THE FOURTH AND LAST TALE FROM "GUY MANNERING."

INTERLUDE OF CONSULTATION

A unanimous sigh greeted the close of Guy Mannering. It was the narrator's reward—the same which the orator hears, when, in a pause of speech, the strained attention relaxes, and the people, slowly bent forward like a field of corn across which the wind blows, settle back into their places.

"A jolly ending—and the cave part was ripping!" summed up Hugh John, nodding his head in grave approval of Sir Walter, "but why can't he always write like that?"

"Couldn't keep it up," suggested Sir Toady Lion; "books can't all be caves, you know."

"Well, anyhow, I'm not going to play any more heroes," said Hugh John, emphatically. "I bags Hatteraick—when we get out to the Den!"

The young man intimated by these cabalistic words that the part of Hatteraick was to be his in any future play-acting.

"Which being interpreted," said Sweetheart, with spirit, "means that I am to be Gilbert Faa the gipsy, and Glossin, and all these nasty sort of people. Now I don't mind Meg Merrilies a bit. And being shot like that—that's always something. But I warn you, Hugh John, that if you were Hatteraick ten times over, you couldn't get me down over that iron bar!"

"No, that you couldn't," said Sir Toady Lion, seeing a far-off chance for himself; "why, Sweetheart could just batter your head against the wall! And then when Mac-Guffog came in the morning with his lantern, he'd find that old Hatteraick hadn't any need to go and hang himself! But don't you two squabble over it; I will do Hatteraick myself!"

"A very likely thing!" sneered Hugh John. "You heard me say 'Bags Hatteraick,' Toady Lion! Every one heard me—you can't go back on that. You know you can't!"

This was unanswerable. It was felt that to palter with such sacred formulas would be to renounce the most sacred obligations and to unsettle the very foundations of society.

Whereupon I hastened to keep his Majesty's peace by proposing a compromise.

"The girls surely don't want to play the villains' parts," I began.

"Oh, but just don't they!" ejaculated Maid Margaret, with the eyes of a child-saint momentarily disappointed of Paradise. "Why does a cat not eat butter for breakfast every morning? Because it jolly well can't get it."

"Well, at any rate," said I, severely, "girls oughtn't to want to play the villains' parts."

"No," said Sweetheart, with still, concentrated irony, "they ought always to do just what boys tell them to, of course—never think of wanting anything that boys want, and always be thankful for boys' leavings! U-m-m! I know!"

"You should wait till you hear what I meant to say, Sweetheart," I went on, with as much dignity as I could muster. "There are plenty of characters you will like to be, in every one of the books, but I think it would be fair always to draw lots for the first choice!"

"Yes—yes—oh, yes!" came the chorus, from three of the party. But Hugh John, strong in the indefeasible rights of man, only repeated, "I said 'Bags Hatteraick!'"

"Well, then," I said, "for this time Hatteraick is yours, but for the future it will be fairer to draw lots for first choice."

"All right," growled Hugh John; "then I suppose I'll have to put up with a lot more heroes! Milksops, I call them!"

"Which book shall we have next?" said Sweetheart, who was beginning to be rather ashamed of her heat. "I don't believe that you could tell us Rob Roy!"

"Well, I can try," said I, modestly. For so it behooves a modern parent to behave in the presence of his children.

"She," said Hugh John, pointing directly at his sister, "she read nearly half the book aloud, and we never came to Rob at all. That's why she asks for Rob Roy."

"But there's all about Alan Breck in the preface—ripping, it is!" interpolated Sir Toady, who had been doing some original research, "tell us about him."

But Alan Breck was quite another story, and I said so at once. Rob Roy they had asked for. Rob Roy they should have. And then I would stand or fall by their judgment.

RED CAP TALES TOLD FROM ROB ROY

THE FIRST TALE FROM "ROB ROY"

FRANK THE HIGHWAYMAN

Frank Osbaldistone had come back from France to quarrel with his father. A merchant he would not be. He hated the three-legged stool, and he used the counting-house quills to write verses with.

His four years in Bordeaux had spoiled him for strict business, without teaching him anything else practical enough to please his father, who, when he found that his son persisted in declining the stool in the dark counting-room in Crane Alley, packed him off to the care of his brother, Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistone of Osbaldistone Hall in Northumberland, there to repent of his disobedience.

"I will have no idlers about me," he said, "I will not ask even my own son twice to be my friend and my partner. One of my nephews shall take the place in the firm which you have declined."

And old Mr. Osbaldistone, of the firm of Osbaldistone and Tresham, merchants in London town, being above all things a man of his word, Master Frank took to the North Road accordingly, an exile from his home and disinherited of his patrimony.

At first he was gloomy enough. He was leaving behind him wealth, ease, society. As he looked back from the heights of Highgate, the bells of the city steeples rang out their "Turn again, Whittington!" And to tell the truth, Frank Osbaldistone felt half inclined to obey. But the thought of his father's grave scorn held him to his purpose, and soon the delights of travel and the quickly changing scene chased the sadness from his heart. Indeed, as was natural to a young man, a good horse under his thigh and fifty guineas in his pocket helped amazingly to put him in the best humour with himself.

The company Frank met with on the North Road was commonplace and dull. But one poor man, a sort of army officer in a gold-laced hat, whose martial courage was more than doubtful, amused Frank Osbaldistone by clinging desperately to a small but apparently very heavy portmanteau, which he carried on the pillion before him, never parting from it for a moment. This man's talk was all of well-dressed highwaymen, whose conversation and manners induced the unwary to join company with them. Then in some shady dell whistling up their men, the unlucky traveller found himself despoiled—of his goods certainly, perhaps also of his life.

It delighted Frank's boyish humour beyond measure to play upon the fears of this gallant King's officer—which he proceeded to do by asking him first whether his bag were heavy or not, then by hinting that he would like to be informed as to his route, and finally by offering to take the bag on his own pillion and race him with the added weight to the nearest village.

This last audacious proposal almost took the man's breath away, and from that moment he was convinced that Frank was none other than the "Golden Farmer" himself in disguise.

At Darlington, the landlord of their inn introduced a Scotch cattle dealer, a certain Mr. Campbell, to share their meal. He was a stern-faced, dark-complexioned man, with a martial countenance and an air of instinctive command which took possession of the company at once. The lawyer, the doctor, the clergyman, even Frank himself, found themselves listening with deference to the words of this plainly dressed, unobtrusive, Scottish drover. As for the man with the weighty bag, he fairly hung upon his words. And especially so when the landlord informed the company that Mr. Campbell had with his own hand beaten off seven highwaymen.

"Thou art deceived, friend Jonathan," said the Scot, "they were but two, and as beggarly loons as man could wish to meet withal!"

"Upon my word, sir," cried Morris, for that was the name of the man with the portmanteau, edging himself nearer to Mr. Campbell, "really and actually did you beat two highwaymen with your own hand?"

"In troth I did, sir," said Campbell, "and I think it nae great thing to mak' a sang about."

"Upon my word, sir," said Morris, eagerly, "I go northward, sir—I should be happy to have the pleasure of your company on my journey."

And, in spite of short answers, he continued to press his proposal upon the unwilling Scot, till Campbell had very unceremoniously to extricate himself from his grip, telling him that he was travelling upon his own private business, and that he could not unite himself to any stranger on the public highway.

The next day Frank approached Osbaldistone Hall, which stood under the great rounded range of the Cheviot Hills. He could already see it standing, stark and grey, among its ancestral oaks, when down the ravine streamed a band of huntsmen in full chase, the fox going wearily before, evidently near the end of his tether. Among the rout and nearer to Frank than the others, owing to some roughness of the ground, rode a young lady in a man's coat and hat—which, with her vest and skirt, made the first riding-habit Frank had ever seen.

The girl's cheeks were bright with the exercise. Her singular beauty was the more remarkable, chanced upon in so savage a scene. And when, after hearing the "Whoop—dead!" which told of poor Reynard's decease, she paused to tie up her loosened locks, Master Frank stared most undisguisedly and even impolitely.

One of the young huntsmen, clad in red and green, rode towards her, waving the brush in his hand as if in triumph over the girl.

"I see," she replied, "I see. But make no noise about it. If Phœbe here (patting the neck of her mare) had not got among the cliffs, you would have had little cause for boasting."

Then the two of them looked at Frank and spoke together in a low tone. The young man seemed sheepishly to decline some proposal which the girl made to him.